


"Ever want to disappear?"

by those_forgotten



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Don't sue me, Harry is sick, M/M, harry takes pictures, largely based off of Disappear by Mikky Ekko i don't know how to spell that, louis is a favorite subject, louis is his sunshine but he doesn't quite know it yet, love is blinding what can i say, they spend time on a beach in midwinter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-11 09:45:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3322841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/those_forgotten/pseuds/those_forgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What’s up, Lou?” Louis slowly turned his eyes away from the glittering sea to meet Harry’s instead, smiling softly. </p><p>“Have you ever closed your eyes and wished you could be somewhere else, someone else? Just disappear?” Harry thought of his health, and of his dad walking out long before Harry had been diagnosed, and of finding his mother crying at the kitchen table in the middle of the night. He nodded. </p><p>“I don’t feel that way anymore, here with you.”</p><p> </p><p>or, Harry is dying, and Gemma brings him back to the beach where he met Louis. i can't write summaries please just read</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Ever want to disappear?"

When Harry woke up he saw beside his bed a large leather book. Looking closer, he saw it to be a photo album. He was certain it hadn’t been there when he’d went to sleep – and then he saw Gemma asleep on the chair next to him, evidently having brought it with her. 

He tentatively opened the cover. Written on the inside in boyish scratch were two lines:   
I hope you want to disappear, too.   
19-7-10

Harry struggled to catch his breath. He knew, of course, what that line was from, and he knew who he had written it to, and with that memory he knew hundreds of others suddenly. 

Turning the first page, he came across a photo of a small seaside cottage, pale yellow with white shutters. Then Gemma – shorter hair, younger – walking ahead of him towards the door of the house, smiling entreatingly at him to, “Come on, Harry, put the camera down, interact for once.” The same page contained a photo of his mother standing alone later that day, quietly on the grey beach. Harry blinked away a tear when he saw one on his mother’s cheek. 

In his younger days, Harry had been quite the photographer. He’d told himself that before he was – gone – he wanted to capture warmth and beauty and love so he could see it when he was old and cold and alone. So next were pictures of the sun glinting on waves, of seagulls poking at bits of bread his sister had been throwing, of Gemma laughing uproariously at a cheeky gull pecking at her foot. 

But he knew there was beauty in what was sorrowful and painful, too. So he captured his mother asleep on the beach, clutching a folder of his medical files like maybe if she held them close enough they would change. He found Gemma looking with a soft, sad smile at pictures of the two of them when they were both young, exuberant. And he found himself, staring at the bird-bones jutting out at his collarbones and his skeletal hands, knowing he was wasting away no matter the ‘healing power of the shore’. 

But next came purpose itself. The day Harry met Louis he’d actually been taking a picture of him. His expression, an empty longing one, had taken Harry and so he thought the tan boy mightn’t mind it. Louis had turned around just as Harry snapped the picture, and so Harry was left instead with a blurry beach background and only Louis in focus. Bright blue-eyed, soft hair falling across his forehead, skin practically glowing. Louis. 

For a moment they stared at each other, Harry in complete embarrassment that he’d been caught taking a picture of a stranger without asking first. Louis was simply intrigued. 

“You’re not usually here, are you?” He asked lightheartedly, stepping closer.   
“Yeah, I’m new – I mean, no I don’t, I’m not,” Harry managed to stammer. 

Louis’ face broke into a grin. “I’m Louis,” he said, sticking a hand out.   
Harry smiled in return. “’M Harry.”

Harry knew that they had spent that day – and twenty-two more days after that – talking on the beach, or swimming, or laughing. Louis was always laughing. It was an incredible contrast from his family, who seemed more often to be warily watching him out of the corner of their eyes, catching themselves whenever they got to be too happy – because how could they feel happy when their baby was sick?

So laughing with Louis was a welcome development. It seemed, from day one, that they simply fit together. When they walked, they swayed closer to each other. When they sat at dinner, they unknowingly leaned nearer so they were neatly lined up. There was a picture of them having a meal, supposedly taken by one of their mothers. It was a group picture, actually, but it might as well have been just the two of them. 

Photos of them in just swim trunks, arms slung over the other, staring out at the water. The two of them fallen asleep on beach towels laid across the rocks, sharing earphones attached to Harry’s iPod. A picture of Louis wheedling at Harry to, “Get in the water, babe, come on, you’ve only got so long.” And the resulting panic at what was meant to be a light-hearted comment because he only did have so long, and Louis didn’t even know. 

Harry recalled with a wince that he’d worked himself into a faint, and he’d later woken up to Louis sitting worriedly beside him. Then, that blinding smile complete with crinkly eyes when he saw Harry was all right. Oh, but he wasn’t. 

On a rainy day, Harry and Louis cuddled on a small floral couch watching Peter Pan. Later that day, wandering outside in jumpers and joggers, holding hands and smiling softly while they gazed at the rainbow. Harry hadn’t even known these pictures existed. After their trip, he’d been hospitalized so much that memories had faded, switched around, turned into dreams that he wasn’t sure had happened or not. 

Pages and pages of pictures of them together, pictures of just Louis as he smiled or talked or frowned because, “Really, Curly, more pictures?” He’d made it through the entire book, smiling and shaking his head amusedly and crying, and was now at the last page. 

A photo of Louis, turning around to look at Harry – so similar to the day they’d met – but this time smiling with his whole being. 

“What’s up, Lou?” Louis slowly turned his eyes away from the glittering sea to meet Harry’s instead, smiling softly. 

“Have you ever closed your eyes and wished you could be somewhere else, someone else? Just disappear?” Harry thought of his health, and of his dad walking out long before Harry had been diagnosed, and of finding his mother crying at the kitchen table in the middle of the night. He nodded. 

“I don’t feel that way anymore, here with you.”

When Gemma woke up a few minutes later, she found her baby brother sobbing over the photo album. She stroked his curls softly, and knew she’d been right all along. 

 

“Gemma, you cannot just do this, he is my son!”   
“Mum, he’s eighteen, technically he can do this by himself. I just thought I’d go along with him.”   
“You are not leaving with my baby, not in his condition.”   
“Mum, he’s just lying here fading away, is that how you want him to spend his last – “   
“Please, Gem. Please.”   
“You know, that’s just what he said to me. Just two days, and we’ll be home again. Healing power of the shore, remember?”   
“It’s mid-winter, Gemma.”   
“Your son is going to just disappear one day – not literally, but he’s going to just slip away. I’m trying to give him something to hold onto, just for a little while.” 

So Harry, wrapped up in blankets in the passenger seat of Gemma’s blue rattler, made his way to the shore with his sister. 

He hadn’t known that Gemma knew. Hell, he hadn’t even known himself. Or at least he told himself that. When he related this to his sister, she laughed softly. 

“Babes, it was actually embarrassing how much you were into him. It actually made me sick to watch.” Her breath caught at her choice of wording. 

But Harry giggled nervously and glanced over at her. “And you think he – did he look the same way, I mean – was he . . . “ 

“Harry, that boy was love-struck. I half-expected him to propose to you while we were there,” she said, laughing and ruffling his curls. 

Harry said nothing about the day Louis did, to an extent. They’d been spending a lazy afternoon on the sun-soaked dunes, and while Harry dozed on and off Louis had been fiddling with some beach grass. When Harry woke up, on his left ring finger was a circle made of seagrass. He looked over at Louis, who said or did nothing unusual. But Harry saw him turn away and smile earsplittingly into his hand. 

“What’re you smiling so big about over there?” Gemma asked, shaking Harry out of his reverie. He shook his head and turned to look out the window at the approaching sea. It wasn’t ten minutes later that they pulled up to the beach cottage. 

“Now, I’m going to make myself scarce for a few hours. If anything happens, call me, all right?” Harry nodded, kissed Gemma on the cheek – he wondered briefly how many more kisses he would give out in his lifetime – and stepped out of the car. 

He began walking along the beach, staring down at the sand, remembered the summer he’d spent here – a bright spot burnt into his recent existence of starch white hospital sheets and cold metal clipboards. He’d wanted to come back the next summer, but he just couldn’t make the trip, according to his doctor. That had been a bad time. That was when he’d been told no more than seven months. That was when his mother had sobbed into his arms and needed a shot just to leave him. 

Harry stopped suddenly in his tracks. He didn’t even know if Louis lived here full-time. Coming here was so stupid now, he realized. He should have said goodbye to this, whatever it was, long ago. It began to rain, and he couldn’t help the tears that mixed in with the water beating down on his shoulders. He let his eyes shut and remembered a warmer time with a warm boy. 

“Harry?” It’s not him. It isn’t. Don’t be daft.   
“Harry, is that – you?” Harry told himself not to open his eyes, because he’d heard Louis’ voice before, in dreams and when his mother put on nature sounds to help him sleep but they didn’t help because all he heard was Louis’ voice amongst the crashing waves. 

He would not open his eyes because he would only be disappointed and he wasn’t sure how many more disappointments he could take at this point. 

“Har – Harry, it’s me, Louis!” And suddenly Harry felt hands on his shoulders, and the unmistakable warmth and steadiness of Louis’ arms, and he saw Louis’ eyes, just as blue but faintly older, and his soft brown hair pushed off his forehead now. And Louis. 

He felt himself reacting as he always did with Louis, wholeheartedly and without any reservations. His arms enveloped Louis’ frame, and he tucked his head into his shoulder. They stood like that for a minute, breathing. Finally, Louis pulled away, incredulous. 

“What’re you doing here, Harry?” Harry just shook his head, grateful for the rain now that hid his tears. “I just – had to see you,” was his reply. And Louis crowed in laughter, slinging an arm over Harry’s shoulder. “Took you long enough, mate, I tell you that.

“Now come in out of the rain and talk to me.” They headed up the dunes to the old cottage, still standing there, an emblem of the boys who had come and gone and come again, together. 

Louis forced the door open, evidently its not having been opened for a year and a half. “Yeah, no one came after you guys. Sure there’s still some tea left though.” And he went straight to the kitchen, bustling around and already filling the deserted house with noise and light. 

Harry sat and watched. Louis was certainly older now, though not old. In the time they’d been away, Harry had grown taller, a fact that Louis griped over as Harry fetched the mugs Louis couldn’t quite reach. Yet Louis was well built, muscular and solid. Harry miserably considered his own skins-and-bones body.   
Louis had seemed to grow even more animated in Harry’s absence, if that was possible, leaping around the kitchen as he sang and laughed and caught Harry up on his life. Harry was quite certain that if he moved around as much as Louis for just a day, he would have to sleep a week. 

When the tea was made, Louis finally sat down quietly and the two spoke as easily as they always had. “You know, Harry, I’ve missed you so much. I thought I’d never see you again. I couldn’t stop thinking of you – well, of that summer, with you.” He stopped, looking at Harry uncertainly. “What happened? Why didn’t you come back, or...” He came to a pause again. “Is it something I did?” 

Harry clenched his eyes shut. “No. No, Louis, don’t ever think that. I wanted to come so badly – there’s no other place I would ever go instead. I just... couldn’t. Do you understand?” Louis looked at him carefully. 

“Not really. But that’s okay. You’re here with me now. I have you now.” And he smiled brightly and took Harry’s hand, threading their fingers together. “We’ve missed out on so much time though. You’re so grown up,” he said softly, breathing lightly, eyes locked on Harry’s. 

Harry made a decision then because he agreed that he’d lost too much of his life with Louis. “I’m giving you the rest of my time. I promise.” Louis didn’t have to know how long the rest was. 

Louis grinned hugely and poked at Harry’s cheek. “What makes you think I’ll have you? Come on, it’s snowing out now and the sun’s setting.” He took Harry’s hand and his mug, grabbing an armful of heavy blankets as they headed to the door. 

The boys settled on the comforters, grasping their tea to keep their hands warm, and when their drinks were cold, they reached for each other’s hands instead. From the dunes, huddled close, they could see the sun slowly sinking low onto the water. The snow drifted idly to the ground like it didn’t have much of an agenda. Neither did Harry and Louis. 

Louis fell back against Harry’s chest – had his ribcage always been so pronounced? – and looked up at the sky. Snowflakes stuck to his eyelashes and Harry leaned forward slowly to kiss them off. Louis’ breath caught, and he reached a hand up into Harry’s curls, pulling Harry’s face closer to his own. 

Their first kiss was slow, warm, and faintly sugary. It lasted on and off for several minutes. Louis wondered if Harry had always had asthma, or if his inability to catch his breath came from something else. Harry decided he had quite a few more kisses to give out in his lifetime. 

When the circumstances called for it, Louis sat up to kneel over Harry, deepening their kiss and setting Harry’s heart beating probably too fast for someone in his condition. Harry pushed him back lightly, kissing his cheeks, his nose, his forehead. 

“Not now, Lou. We have time,” he lied, pressing his face into Louis’ chest. Louis sighed but wrapped his arms around Harry nonetheless, pulling the blanket around them. He was a little worried over how pale Harry looked, the faint hue of blue to his usually pink lips. He wondered if they might go in soon. 

When he mentioned this to Harry, he shook his head fervently, burrowing deeper into Louis’ chest. “Not just yet,” he begged, meeting Louis’ eyes. Louis wondered if they’d always seemed to burn that wildly, almost desperately, inside his face. 

“I don’t want to disappear.”

Louis wasn’t sure if he’d heard Harry correctly. They’d been sitting for a long time quietly, watching the snow and the waves. It’d been no more than a weak whisper, but he heard it. 

Louis held Harry tighter. “I would disappear with you,” he promised. Harry smiled softly and shut his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> im so sorry


End file.
